New Tales from the Borderlands Review
The fact that New Tales from the Borderlands exists at all warms my heart, considering that it had to defy the death of Telltale Games to do so. The original 2014 episodic adventure grabbed me with its excellent writing, sharp sense of humor, and likable main characters in Fiona and Rhys. While the unconnected, full-game-in-one-box follow-up gets a lot of things right, its attempts to flesh out the Telltale formula – not to mention the runtime – bog down what is otherwise a funny romp on a new planet with a new cast of anti-heroes.
What I like most about New Tales from the Borderlands are its three new protagonists: the prudish, know-it-all scientist Anu; her street-smart, fame-chasing adopted brother Octavio; and the rageaholic frozen yogurt shop owner Fran. L0u13 (“Louie”), a killbot who starts to question the purpose of his one-note existence and gets a lot of laughs by the time the end credits roll, is also along for the ride in a non-playable role. New Tales was handled by Borderlands developer Gearbox itself in the wake of Telltale’s demise, but the quality of its characters and their humor is fairly consistent.
The group starts out on their respective individual paths but is quickly brought together by, in typical Borderlands fashion, a Vault, its treasure, and an evil corporation. And the first 80% of New Tales does a rather good job of mimicking what made the first Tales game so great: silly humor delivered admirably by talented motion capture and voice actors, cartoonish violence, and separate but interweaving plotlines. And like Vaughn and Claptrap before them, some of the side characters you meet along the way supply some of the most memorable moments, notably the nameless, action-figure-obsessed Tediore
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